Senior passes volleyball milestone Friday

Eastern Michigan head coach Kim Berrington congratulates senior outside hitter Lauren Wicinski on her career milestone Sept. 20, 2013 at Jenison Field House. Wicinski ended the night having gone more than two thousand kills in her career. Khoa Nguyen/ The State News

Before then, only eight players in Big Ten volleyball history had reached 2,000 career kills. It’s exclusive company.

“It feels amazing,” Wicinski said after the sweep over Eastern Michigan. “The support that was here tonight to support me was just awesome.”

Wicinski is the third MSU player to accomplish the feat, joining Veronica Morales and Jenna Wrobel, who recently was inducted into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame.

Wicinski passed Morales’ career kill total of 2,006 on Saturday. She now has the second-highest number of career kills of any MSU volleyball player — 2,042.

“Lauren has the kind of attitude that you need as an attacker,” head coach Cathy George said. “You need to have that aggressive, stay in the moment, looking to just score whenever we can. She’s that type of player, and therefore, she’s put herself in the position to achieve these types of goals.”

Wicinski has been a focal point on offense for the No. 14 Spartans. Her 173 season kills are second in the Big Ten. Her .41 service aces per-set rank third.

“We all know that (Wicinski is) someone that’s going for a kill every time, and more times than not, she’s going to get it, just because of her aggressive attitude and her will to get a kill,” junior libero Kori Moster said. “That’s something that’s really cool about her and something that she definitely helps set our team apart and helps us get to that higher level that we want to be at.”

With 20 games remaining in the season, it’s possible that Wicinski will finish with one of the highest kill totals in NCAA history.

Wrobel has 2,295 career kills, a number that’s the 18th-highest in NCAA volleyball history.

Surpassing Wrobel’s career total is in the cards for Wicinski this season, and would give her one of the 20 highest kill totals in NCAA history.

“I would anticipate that she’s going to be creeping up throughout the year, and we’ll just see where it ends and go from there,” George said. “I’m sure she’s going to be breaking different records throughout the season.”